<p>Geogirl maybe, I live in the lower Hudson valley here its 16 you cam get a permit, 16 1/2 you get junior license, with restrictions can’t drive before 5am or after 9 am unless you are working or coming from a school function and you can only have 1 non-family member in the car, at 17 you are eligible for a full license if you take drivers ed. Otherwise it automatically switches to full at 18</p>
<p>Prom- I’m super excited lol. They’re holding line at the west point club. Schools president is a military kid so she got a discount</p>
<p>I think it’s in the teacher’s contract here that schools can’t start before Labor Day. Most of the schools don’t have air conditioning so it seems to make sense to start as late as possible. </p>
<p>Prom is tonight at my son’s school. I think jr and sr does it combined since it’s a small school. Obviously he isn’t going. What I thought was funny was that if you were late or absent today, you won’t be allowed at prom tonight and no one could be released early before 10:30. </p>
<p>It’s so nice to see the varied summer plans for everyone. Nothing is seeming “typical”. Not that anything’s wrong with typical :)</p>
<p>Here kids can get a permit at 15, license at 16. They have to have their permit for at least 6 months before they get their license. They also have to take a certified driver’s education class and have 6 hours of driving time with a certified instructor and at least 30 hours of drive time with parents, 10 of which must be at night.</p>
<p>Neighboring states allow a restricted license at 14, yes 14. They can only drive during daylight hours and then only to school and work (not that it isn’t easy to get around those though). Scary.</p>
<p>Tx5athome: I think the schools which generally start late have to make up a month of instruction before testing and they just load with summer homework!! I see it in my S’s school too. School open after labor Day so they have to make it up somehow</p>
<p>Jr. Prom in two weeks here too. The tickets were on sale. Obviously S isn’t going. He has not gone to any of the class dances either. He doesn’t seem to be bothered about it- which is good. </p>
<p>Here, I think one can get the permit after 15 and 1/2, My S recently got his permit(or restricted license- whatever it is called). He can drive around with an adult inside and can not drive between 1PM and 5 AM. H is helping him with the driving.</p>
<p>Personally, I would rather go back after Labor Day, despite the summer homework. Our weather is kind of gloomy in June, so it isn’t horrible to be in school. And the good news, since this is my last kid, is that this will be the last year of summer homework!!</p>
<p>Our school started later than usual this year due to some construction issues. They also outlawed all summer homework except for reading for English. So D in 5 AP classes has to learn the material in a shorter period of time. They have finished all they are going to do in AP Chem already and are reviewing. I’m not concerned about Stat or English Lang or Econ, but AP Euro will be stressful test (on Prom day!).</p>
<p>Our after Labor Day start has nothing to do with teacher contracts and everything to do with the resort/vacation lobby pushing for a later school start so they can extend their season.</p>
<p>Here in NY it’s the 5 hr Course, 50 hours of supervised driving 15 at night. But no one actually does it because they don’t need to logged it’s like a “we trust you to be honest” parents just sign off.</p>
<p>D13s school also outlawed summer homework except for reading and even that is just recommended (read, D13 ignores it lol)</p>
<p>For us, you can get permit at 15 1/2, then you can get your license 9 months after you get your permit so the earliest you could get a license is 16 1/4 but you must hold the premit for 9 months so if you delay getting that you delay everything else. Then you have restrictions for a year (no after certain hours, no more than one non-family passenger, etc). D13 hits her year of license this summer - right when S15 can get his permit - YIKES! :)</p>
<p>The kids get summer reading for their AP English classes but that is about it. The past 2 summers they have had to read ONE book and write a 2 page paper on the book–very taxing…:D</p>
<p>Texas used to have the earliest start dates in the country. Some districts started the 1st or 2nd week of August. But a couple years ago, the legislature passed a law limiting the earliest start date to the 3rd Monday in August. Waivers are allowed, but they are getting harder to come by. Most of the schools are airconditioned now, but I remember sweltering for a couple weeks when I was a kid. I think the tourism industry had something to do with pushing the start date later so that they can still have teens to run the amusement parks, etc. I’m fine with an August start date, cause by August in TX no one wants to be outside anyway!!!</p>
<p>Oh, and very little summer homework - usually one book for English and sometimes AP history. But then the teachers end up giving them a week or so to finish when school starts so what’s the point?</p>
<p>I HATE all the summer homework! When my kids were both in the magnet high schools they had ENORMOUS amounts of work. DD spent the whole summer between 8th and 9th working on really involved summer projects. The next summer, each teacher assigned a project with 1 or 2 books to read. Now that she is back in our home district there’s usually only 1 math packet, a few books for English, and sometimes something for history.</p>
<p>I wish that they could just take some time off - I feel like our kids are stressed enough, AND usually involved with so many other things all summer.</p>
<p>megpmom–our kids don’t get extra time to finish once school starts but they are tested on the book within the first couple days so all of the kids have figured out to do the homework the week before school starts. I don’t see the point either.</p>
<p>Our summer homework is usually quite extensive. English is usually a couple of books, a paper or two and a test when they return, history usually has an assignment, maybe a chapter or two, science (AP Bio or whatever) has a couple of chapters and homework, even the math teachers will assign something. Every year it drives me crazy! Add to that each of the coaches thinking that their sport is the only thing going on. S3 finally quit basketball, but it was practice every day for the first 6 weeks of the summer plus a summer league twice a week and tournaments every weekend.</p>
<p>My son never had summer homework. The closest was when he started high school. They had a 4 day orientation a month before school started and they all had to read The House of the Scorpion. The cool thing is that book is a theme for one of his senior year science classes.</p>
<p>OK, so here’s my first “last” with ds2: last time jumping through hoops to arrange a physical for athletic participation. I will not miss this task at all.</p>
<p>I go out for a yogurt with D and you guys fill a whole page. Ha. Ha.</p>
<p>I can’t remember what D had to do for homework, but I remember for S, for BC Calc three years ago, when he got back to school. He had not done the summer work so first homework grade was an F, which meant, “I MEAN BUSINESS”. He did not miss her class all year (and he missed plenty of his other classes) and I think he got the message. </p>
<p>We discussed this summer over the yogurt. She will work or take a class. She would really rather work. She will know more in a week or so.</p>
<p>Report on Lehigh: DD13 loved it! She loved the style of the campus and buildings; apparently even if her room looks like a hurricane just hit it, how the campus looks is important to her. She liked the hills and the bus or walk up to the north campus. The campus joke is that you can tell what year you are by the state of your calf muscles. Lehigh is built on a side of a mountain. Since she is a runner/champion race walker (don’t laugh, she is really good!), she has the calf muscles thing down. She liked that there is room in your schedule to major in engineering and have a minor or at least a concentration is something artsy or science based. She would like to do that. She also liked that you can be an engineer and with AP credits and some planning, she could still do a semester abroad or some sort of travel option. That is all good. As a fairly liberal family, we were thinking that being on a conservative campus might not feel right. She said it was fine and she could tell that the school was large enough and diverse enough that she would find her people and be just fine. Downside is that merit aid is difficult to come by. We will have two in school for 3 of her four years and that will help. However, that 4th year could be a killer. We will have to see how that pans out. </p>
<p>Tomorrow is Bucknell - I’ll give a trip report when I hear back.</p>